Fear Of Flying, Fear of Dying

What do Jack Brummet, Isaac Asimov John Madden, Dennis Miller, Billy Bob Thornton, Kate Bush, Muhammad, Ray Bradbury, Cher, Florence Henderson, Glenda Jackson, Michael Jackson, Bob Newhart, Ronald Reagan, Elisha Cuthbert, Doris Day, Aretha Franklin, Tony Kornheiser, Kim Jong-Il, Matthew Sweet, Richard Wright, David Gilmour, and John Gotti have in common? We're all scared s***less of flying (or were, in the case of the departed. . .none of who actually perished in an airplane); we're all aviophobes.

There are even fictional characters in our ranks, like B. A. Baracus of the TV series The A-Team. They usually have to slip him some heavy drugs, or knock him out with a punch to get him on a 'plane. And Tyler from Snakes On A Plane is in the same boat.


illustration from http://www.fearofflyingdoctor.com/

When my fear of flying comes up in conversations, people remind me that being a hard core commuter, I am at far more risk going to work than I am flying off somewhere. False! According to the wikipedia "there is no way to unambiguously validate or invalidate this notion. While there are far more automobile deaths per year, that is mostly due to the far greater number of automobiles in society. In the United States, the number of fatalities per 100 million miles traveled is slightly higher for commercial air travel than for driving! with rates of 1.9 versus 1.3, per 100 million miles traveled, respectively.

"The risk, however, that someone randomly selected from the general population will die in an aviation accident during a single year is far higher for motor vehicles (1 in 7700) than for aircraft (1 in 2,067,000). The air travel statistic includes small commuter flights, which, if excluded, would improve the air travel statistics; however, the number of motor vehicle deaths do not include motorcycles, which, if included, would substantially worsen the motor vehicle risk." I don't ride motorcycles.

Travel on commercial airlines is reasonably safe; when you toss in the Cessnas, Lear Jets, home-builts, and Beechcrafts, flying becomes far more dangerous. And air travel in developed countries is several times safer than air travel in developing countries, a statistic I remember every time I fly to Mexico.

Another thing people tell you is that most aviation accidents (like car accidents) are due to human error rather than mechanical failures. But, you know, that does little to assuage my angst. In fact, however, I am probably less afraid of flying than I am of flying and then not flying; it's not the air that spooks me so much as the ground!

Link to my poem, "Notes On Flying."
---o0o---